whatever regard his physiognomical observations deserve, has, I believe, mentioned that the modern busts of Shakspeare do not represent a man of genius, from the invariable shortness of his upper lip.

In the description of a bust neither possessing a characteristic pertness of countenance, nor deficient in skilful ness of execution, a bust seen to the least advantage in its present situation, so long disregarded, except by the very few, who, having bad the constant opportunity, have been in the almost daily habit of contemplating and admiring it; and at last likely to gain its due value in the opinion of the illustrious Bard's intelligent countrymen, when its merits are more fully known than hitherto they have been; it may be at present improper further to intrude upon your pages, which may be better occupied, if not by a subject more interesting to those who boast of being born in a country which produced the greatest dramatic genius in the world, yet by compositions less erratic than the "bald disjointed chat" of

R. B. WHELER.

Yours, &c. Old Town, Stratford-upon-Avon.

AS your pages have always afforded

a ready admission to any observations relative to the general Topography of this favoured Isle, and as County History in particular seems at present to hold a deservedly high rank in the public estimation; I venture to address you in behalf of a spot, of which but a very unsatisfactory and imperfect account has hitherto been given. The county of Somerset, sir, has laboured under the misfortune of having had an Historian, who, for the most part, has been diffuse, where a less detailed account would have been desirable, and too often brief, where a more ample account would have been acceptable to his readers. His pen was not calculated for the office which it assumed; and, were it necessary, numerous instances might be adduced, in which profferred information was too hastily canvassed, and documents of an interesting nature too cursorily investigated. That the opinion of the residents of the county

logue of the bookseller, and the hammer of the auctioneer, afford a suffi cient proof, whenever the History of Somerset is enrolled in the pages of the one, or subjected to the vibration of the other. The very limited patronage, which the venerable and well-qualified Historian of the neighbouring County of Dorset has experienced, would appear to afford in a pecuniary point of view an unfavourable prospect of encouragement to such an undertaking; but, sir, when the extent of our County, its infinitely more abundant population, and the perpetual change of property, to which that population necessarily gives rise, are taken into consideration, the adventurer, I am confident, would not feel that he was about to launch into an uncertain and precarious speculation. From my own personal knowledge, I can affirm that Proposals for a New History of Somerset would meet with general attention; and in the hope that these remarks will be considered as conveying a stimulus to the exertions of the living, rather than a reflection on the labours of the dead, I subscribe myself, URBANI AMICUS.

in small characters, and appears first at folio 105, and again at folios 105 b. 108 b. 110, 111, 112, 112 b. 113, 114b. 115, and 116.

I am at a loss for its meaning, and shall thank any of your Correspondents who will assist me in attaining it.

Mr. Kelham (in Domesday Book IlAustrated) does not attempt its explanation, but says merely, "This abbreviation occurs in the margin of Domesday, p. 105, in six places successively, and once in p. 110; but what the signification of it is, or to what it refers, is left to the reader to determine."

Yours, &c.

R. R.

Mr. URBAN, Middle Temple, Jan. 9. THE very learned Mr. Bawdwen,

that of the publick at large, those certain criterions of merit, the cata

Book for Dorsetshire, communicated

to

to the Editor of the Fourth Volume of the excellent History of that County, has fallen into a slight hallucination, by rendering ipsa Ecclesia" the Church itself." It should rather be" the same Church" namely, the Church just before mentioned.-Collinson, in his "Somersetshire," has committed the same mistake.—That Ipsa signifies "the same," is evident from Ainsworth. And accordingly, in the Translation of Domesday for Leicestershire, the indefatigable Historian of that County renders ipsa Abbatia, "the same Abbey," p. vi. ; ipse H. " the same Henry," p. xii.; ipse R. " the same King," &c. &c. Yours, &c.

Mr. URBAN,

IN

CARADOC.

Jun. 18. the Times of Saturday last, Jan. 14, I read a letter signed "Laicus," on the state of the Church in our Western Colonies. With the sentiments of the writer I perfectly agree; and as a Church establishment in the East was formed in the last year, celebrated for many memorable events, and that one not among the least, I do think that a resident Bishop should be sent out by the Prince Regent for the Ecclesiastical Government of the Colonies. It was at first, perhaps, well ordered, that they should be placed under the care of the Bishop of London; but it could not be supposed that they were always to continue so, when that Prelate has so large a Diocese at home. Besides, the inhabitants of the Colonies must be, as things are, without evidently, as the writer expresses, some useful Episcopal rites! Probably some of your friends know a reason why a Bishop should not be sent to reside in Jamaica. Yours, &c. AMICUS.

thoughts on that most important subject, will, I am persuaded, be acceptable to many admirers of the useful portion of his multifarious objects of research, and seems to be a tribute of justice due to his memory. This consideration induces me to indulge a hope, that the insertion of the following anecdote in a Miscellany so generally esteemed and that has so extensive a circulation as the Gentleman's Magazine, may not be deemed an improper occupation of a part of one of its valuable pages. It is extracted from "Travels in some parts of North America, in the years 1804, 1805, and 1806. By Robert Sutcliff, late of Sheffield," one of the Society of Friends (called Quakers), 12mo. printed at York, 1811 *. The Editor informs us that the narrative was penned without the remotest thought of publication, but from the wellknown character of the writer, its strict veracity does not admit of a doubt. He was a respectable merchant in Sheffield, and his extensive dealings with transatlantic connections led him to make two voyages to North America. elapsed, after his return from the latter in 1806, before he consented to permit the manuscript containing the observations he had committed to writing, to go to the press, from whence its contents had issued but a short time, when it pleased Providence to remove him from this state of existence.

Several years

A FRIEND TO ACCURACY.

Page 225. " Philadelphia, 3rd month 31, 1806. In conversation this evening with Samuel Bryant, a son of the Judge of that name, he mentioned that Doctor Franklin was an intimate friend of his father's, and that, in consequence, there was a frequent intercourse between the two families. Amongst a number of anecdotes relating to the Doctor, ha recited one respecting his religious opinions, which appeared to me worth preserving. It is as follows: At the time the Doctor was upon his death bed, he great respect for his judgment in all was visited by a young man who had a things; and having entertained doubts in his own mind as to the truth of the Scriptures, he thought that this awful

HE attention of the publick being

Hon. William Lord Riversdale ob tained a decree of Court for the sale of the mortgaged premises. They Willcocks; and in the deed of conveywere accordingly sold to Mr. Adderley ance the before-mentioned William Baron Riversdale, Mary Greatrakes (widow of Osborne Greatrakes), Anthony Sampis, Esq. and Frances Sampis (otherwise Greatrakes) his wife, and Mary, Catherine, and Sarah Greatrakes, daughters and coheiresses of the late Osborne Greatrakes, are stated to be consenting parties.

William Greatrakes, of Clashder

Greatrakes, I send some particulars relative to his family, drawn up from papers in my possession. "Allen Greatrakes, of Clashdermot, in the Barony of Imokilly, and county of Cork, Gentleman," (so styled in a lease dated March 9, 1755, granted to him by Richard Supple, Esq. * of the lands of Monelahan, co. Cork,) had three sons and a daughter, Elizabeth Greatrakes, wife of .... Courtenay, of Lismore, co. Waterford, and now living at an advanced age. The sons were Osborne Greatrakes, William Greatrakes, Edmond Greatrakes, mentioned in the above lease, but supposed to have died young, as no farther account of him occurs. Allen Greatrakes, the father, devised the lands of Clashdermot and Monelaban to his sons Osborne and William, of which they made a division, Osborne taking Monelahan, and William Clashdermot.

Osborne Greatrakes, the eldest son, resided at the town of Youghall, co. Cork; he is described in the Papers sometimes as "Osborne Greatrakes, Merchant," at others, as "Osborne Greatrakes, Mariner." By his wife, who was named Mary, he left four daughters and coheiresses, viz. 1. Frances, wife of Anthony Sampis, Esq. 2. Mary; 3. Catherine; 4. Sarah. This Osborne Greatrakes mortgaged his leasehold lands of Monelahan and premises in Youghal to Richard Hutcheson, Esq. by whom the Mortgage was assigned to Colonel Richard Tonson, M. P. for the borough of Balimore, whose descendant the Right

Richard Supple, Esq. of Ahadoe, eo. Cork, (the lessor of Allan Greatrakes,) was father of Sir Richard Brooke, Bart, of Northamptonshire.

Junius) is styled usually in these Papers, "William Greatrakes, of the city of Cork, Esq." He appears to have had a property (I believe under a lease) in the barony of Duhallow, co. Cork, which he conveyed to Thomas Chatterton, Gent. of the city of Cork, viz. "all that and those the lands of Knockane robart, Nancy's Farm, Keel, and Milleen, situate in the parish of Culleen, barony of Du hallow, and county of Cork, containing 328 plantation acres, and also the lands of Knockigillane, in the same barony."

Of Mr. William Greatrakes's claims to the authorship of Junius's Letters, I do not feel myself entitled to give any opinion.

Yours, &c.

Mr. URBAN,

G. H. W.

Jan. 19.

N vol. LXXXIV. Part ii. p. 264,

borto lauros carpentem," also a translation of them, both sent by a Correspondent, signed Oxoniensis. I need not tell you, Mr. Urban, that the Eliza so celebrated, was the late learned and excellent Mrs. Elizabeth Carter, the translator of Epictetus. But, on turning to the Memoirs of that lady, by her Nephew the Rev. Montagu Pennington, p. 25 of the quarto edition, I was induced to refer back to the year 1738, of your valuable Miscellany, and there found not only the original Latin verses, p. 372, but three several translations, or rather imitations of them. Also a Latin answer to the Epigram, and a translation of the same, both I believe from the pen of the learned and modest object of the first well-merited compliment.

Yours, &c. A CONSTANT READER.

Mr.

HA

Mr. URBAN, Jun. 2. AREFIELD - PLACE (a view of which forms the Frontispiece to our present Volume) is so ably described by Mr. Lysons, in his "Middlesex Parishes," that I beg you to insert bis own words:

"In the survey of Domesday, the name of this parish is written Herefelle; in other antient records, Herfeld, Herefelde, and Herfield. Harefeld in the Saxon is literally the hare field.'

on

"The parish of Harefield lies in the hundred of Elthorne, and forms the North-west angle of the county of Middlesex, being bounded on the North by Rickmansworth in Hertfordshire; the West by the river Colne, which separates it from Denham in Buckinghamshire; on the South by Hillingdon; and on the East by Ickenham and Rislip. The village is pleasantly situated on rising ground, three miles from Uxbridge, and eighteen from London.

"The manor of Harefield is thus described in the survey of Domesday : 'Richard, son of Gilbert the Earl (of Briou,) holds Herefelle, which is taxed at five hides. The land is five carucates. Two hides are in demesne, on which there are two ploughs. The villans have three ploughs. The priest has one virgate; there are five villans, who hold a virgate each; seven bordars, who have five acres each, and one bordar, who has three acres; there are three cottars, and three slaves, two mills yielding 15s. rent, four fisheries yielding 1000 eels, meadow equal to one carncate, pasture for the cattle of the manor, and The total pannage for 1200 hogs.

annual value is 121.; it was only 87. when entered upon by the present owner; in King Edward (the Confessor's) time (being then the property of the Countess Goda,) it was 141.' Richard, son of Gilbert Earl of Brivu, was sometime called Richard Fitz Gilbert, sometime Richard de Tonbridge, and sometime Richard de Clare: from him it seems to have descended to Alice, daughter of Geoffrey, and grand-daughter of Baldwin de Clare.

"By a quo warranto, bearing date 1284, it appears, that Roger de Bacheworth was then lord of the manor of Harefield, and that he and his ancestors had enjoyed it, with all its rights and privileges, from time immemorial, paying a small quit-rent to the Honour of Clare. Sir Richard de Bacheworth, in the year 1315, granted this manor to Simon de Swanland, who married the elder daughter and co-heir of his brother Roger. This Sir Richard afterwards took upon him GENT. MAG. January, 1815.

the habit of the Knights Hospitallers ; and his wife Margaret, who had dower assigned her in Harefield, took the veil. William, son of Sir Simon de Swanland, had three sons, two of whom died in their infancy, and the third left no issue.

Joanna, the only daughter, married John Newdegate, who was afterward knighted, and served in the wars in France under Edward III. In the year 1585, John Newdegate, esq. the eighth in lineal descent from Sir John, who married Joanna Swanland, exchanged the manor of Harefield, with Sir Edmund Anderson, Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, for the manor of Arbury in Warwickshire, which has ever since been the principal seat of the family. Sir Edmund Anderson, in 1601, sold Harefield to Sir Thomas Egerton, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal; his wife, Alice Countess Dowager of Derby, and Lady Anne, Lady Frances, and Lady Elizabeth Stanley, her daughters. The Lord Keeper died in 1617, being then Viscount Brackley; the Countess of Derby, in 1637. Lady Anne Stanley, the eldest daughter, married Grey Lord Chandos; and after his death, Mervin Earl of Castlehaven. She survived her mother only ten years; and on her death, George Lord Chandos (her eldest son by her first husband) inherited the manor of Harefield, pursuant to the deed of 1601. Lord Chandos died in February 1655, having bequeathed it by will to his wife Jane. In the month of October following, Lady Chandos married Sir William Sedley, bart. Sir William died in 1656; and in 1657 his widow took a third husband, George Pitt, esq. of Stratfield Say, in the county of Southampton. Having vested all her estates, by a deed bearing date 1673, in Mr. Pitt and his heirs, he, in conjuncti on with his trustees, in the month of February 1675, (his lady being still living) conveyed by bargain and sale the manors of Harefield and Morehall to Sir Richard Newdegate, bart. Serjeant at Law, younger son of Sir John Newdegate, and grandson of John Newdegate, esq. who had exchanged them with Sir Edmund Anderson. Having been thus restored to the Newdegate family again, they have continued in it ever since, and are now [1800] the property of Sir Roger Newdigate, bart. who is the thirteenth in descent from Sir John Newdegate first mentioned. It is remarkable that this manor (with the exception of a temporary alienation) has descended by intermarriages, and a regular succession (in the families of Bacheworth, Swanland, and Newdegate,) from the year 1284, when, by the verdict of a Jury, it appeared

that

that Roger de Bacheworth, and his ancestors, had then held it from time immemorial. It is the only instance in which I have traced such remote possession in the county of Middlesex.

"Harefield Place, situated near the Church, [of both of which a good view is given in Mr. Lysons's Work,] was the antient Mansion-house of the Lords of the Manor, and for many years a seat of the Newdegate family. After the alienation before mentioned, it became the successive residence of Lord Chief Justice Anderson, and the Lord Keeper Egerton. The Countess Dowager of Derby, wife of the Lord Keeper, (and with him joint purchaser of the manor,) continued to reside here during ber second widowhood. Here she was honoured with a visit from Queen Elizabeth, whom she received with all the pomp and pageantry of those days *. Sir Roger Newdigate was once possessed of an account in MS. of this visit, with a collection of the complimentary speeches with which, as wa customary upon those occasions, she was addressed. The MS, is unfortunately lost; but Sir Roger Newdigate recollects, that she was first welcomed at a farm-house, now called Dew's farm, by several allegorical persons, who attended her to a long avenue of elms leading to the house, which obtained from this circumstance the name of The Queen's Walk. Four trees of this avenue still remain, and the greater part were standing not many years ago. It was at Harefield Place also that Milton's Arcades was performed by the Countess of Derby's grandchildren. That great Poet, during the time he lived at Horton with his father, (viz. from 1632 to 1637,) was, it is probable, a frequent visitor at Harefield. After the death of the Countess of Derby, Harefield Place was inhabited by George Lord Chandos, her grandson. This Nobleman, during the civil war, attached himself to the royal cause, and behaved with great gallantry at the battle of Newbury, having three horses shot under him. When the republican party had

The Queen was twice at Harefield. In 1601 she visited Sir Edward Anderson there; and in 1602 Sir Thomas Egerton. See the Queen's Progresses, vol. II. 1601, 1602, pp. 20, 21; and Vol. III. Preface, p. xviii. EDIT.

Not long before the death of Sir Roger Newdigate, this curious MS. (which had for many years been missing) was found in a volume of " Strype's Annals;" and a transcript of it was made (see LXXVI. 1074; LXXVII. 633.) But both the original and the copy were soon after again mislaid; and neither of them has since been found. EDIT.

established themselves in power, he was obliged to pay a heavy composition for his estates. He then retired to Harefield, where he spent the remainder of his days in great privacy. Dr. John Conant, a celebrated preacher and divine, resided with him as his domestic Chaplain; and, during his residence there, preached a voluntary lecture on a week-day to a numerous congregation at Uxbridge. Harefield Place was burnt down about the year 1660. Tradition says, that the fire was occasioned by the carelessness of the witty Sir Charles Sedley, who was amusing himself by reading in bed. It is probable that he was on a visit to his sister-in-law Lady Chandos. The foundations of the old mansion may be traced at a little distance above the site of the present house, which was formed by uniting the two lodges with an intermediate building. This was done by Sir Richard Newdegate, the second Baronet, whose widow resided in it several years, it being her jointure house: it was for some years also the residence of Sir Roger Newdigate, the present Baronet [1800], who, in 1743, was unanimously chosen Knight of the shire of Middlesex. In 1760, having fixed his residence in Warwickshire, he sold Harefield Place (retaining the manor and his other estates in this parish) to John Truesdale,esq. In 1780 it was purchased of Mr. Truesdale's executors, by the late William Baynes, esq. whose son, Sir Christopher Baynes, bart. is the present proprietor and occupier.

"Evelyn, in his Sylva, mentions a silver fir, which having been planted at Harefield Place in 1603 at two years growth, had, in 1679, attained the height of 81 feet, and measured 13 feet girth.”

The Church, dedicated to the Virgin Mary, is a Gothic structure of flint and stone, consisting of a chancel, nave, and two ailes; at the west end is a low square tower embattled. It contains a very handsome monument to Alice Countess of Derby, engraved in Mr. Lysons's work; several monuments of the Newdegate family (one of which, to the memory of Mary Lady Newdegate, is also there engraved; monuments in memory of the Ashbyes, Bishop Pritchett, &c. by Mr. Lysons; to whose valuable &c. all of which are fully described Work I refer your Readers.

B. N.